Blue Dragon
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Description
Blue dragons, also known as storm dragons, are among the most vain and prideful of an arrogant race. They take great pleasure in wielding their power, engaging in combat or lording over humanoids and other lesser creatures to prove that they can do so, rather than out of any real desire for results. A blue dragon might forgive insults, but it reacts with rage to any insinuation that it is weak or inferior.
Blues are also extremely territorial dragons. They rarely give intruders, even accidental ones, the opportunity to explain themselves. Blue dragons are more likely than other varieties of chromatic dragons to battle powerful enemies or other dragons over violated borders. This can prove particularly problematic, given that blue dragons are also more finicky about their environment than their cousins.
When other creatures give due respect to blue dragons’ pride and territorial claims, however, blues can be the most reasonable of the chromatic dragons. Blues lack the cruelty of black dragons and the ambition of greens and reds. Some blue dragons live as peaceful neighbors of humanoid communities or even, on occasion, of other dragon varieties. Blues might also employ humanoids to perform tasks for them, because blues enjoy both the opportunity to command others (thus showing their superiority) and the accomplishment of goals without having to exert themselves.
Blue dragons savor large prey such as cattle and herd animals, preferring meals of fewer, larger creatures over many small meals. Blues have no particular desire to hunt sentient prey, but neither have they any compunction about doing so if opportunities present themselves. Blues prefer their meat charred but not cooked through: “lightly kissed by the lightning,” as one blue reputedly put it.
Blue dragons rarely land during combat, preferring flight and far-reaching attacks to lumbering over land in close melee. Because they like to fight from a distance, blue dragons consider combat a long-term engagement. They fly near enough to their opponents to unleash a few barrages, then vanish, and then return—sometimes minutes or hours later. On rare occasions when a blue dragon hunts from the ground or rests away from its lair, it conceals itself beneath the terrain, burrowing with powerful claws. Because most stormy regions have soft ground, such as the sand of a coastline or the rich soil of a rain forest, blue dragons find it easy to hide in this fashion.
Lairs and Terrain
Sages maintain that blue dragons prefer coastal regions. More precisely, blue dragons prefer areas subject to frequent, violent storms. Although coastal areas and seaside cliffs fit this description, so too do certain tropical isles and mountainous highlands not terribly distant from the pounding sea.
If a blue dragon cannot find a properly stormy region in which to settle, it can make do with whatever terrain is available. As long as it has its own territory, a blue dragon might locate its lair on a mountaintop, in a jungle, in the Underdark, or in a desert—anywhere except perhaps the coldest of arctic climes—but any blue living in a location that lacks frequent storms thinks of that location as temporary, even if it ends up dwelling there for a few hundred years. Ultimately, a blue dragon finds happiness only in a place where it hears regular thunder beating on the horizon and where it can soar between clouds with the lightning.
For their lairs, blue dragons favor enormous stone ruins or caves in the sides of hills, cliffs, or mountains. Blues enjoy taking over structures built by other races. They make their lairs as lofty as possible to survey their domains from the heights. Elevation makes them feel truly part of storms that roll through. Even if a blue dragon cannot find or construct a lair at high altitude, it will likely choose a lair in which it can easily access the main entrance only by flight. Would-be intruders on land must undertake difficult, if not nearly impossible, climbs.
Favored Treasure
Blue dragons favor treasures as visually appealing as they are valuable. Blues love gems, particularly sapphires and other blue stones. They equally admire lovely works of art and jewelry. Although such an event is rare, given blues’ innate draconic greed, blue dragons have been known to leave behind treasures they find unattractive, feeling that the presence of such treasures would sully the magnificence of their hoards and thus the magnificence of the dragons themselves.
Life Cycle
Blue dragon eggs incubate for approximately twenty months, the last fifteen in the nest. An average clutch numbers two to four, and most eggs hatch into healthy wyrmlings.
Blue dragons grow from wyrmlings into youth after about seven years. They become adults around age 160 and elders after about a thousand years. They become ancient at about 1,800. The oldest known blue dragon died at approximately 2,300 years of age.
A blue dragon that undergoes environmental diffusion after death creates a permanent storm in the vicinity. This effect happens even underground, though cramped conditions might slacken the strength of the winds. Although the severity of wind and rain rises and falls, ranging from gentle gusts and mild showers to hurricane-force torrents, the storm never dissipates entirely, regardless of the prevailing weather conditions outside it.
Physical Characteristics
The scales of blue dragons are slightly more reflective than those of other chromatic dragons. A person could not use a blue dragon’s scales as mirrors, but in blue or dark environments, the scales take on the surrounding hue and blend into the sky or elements around them.
The horns and brow ridge of a blue dragon funnel rainwater and other precipitation away from the eyes. When combined with a blue dragon’s keen vision, this feature enables the dragon to see better in inclement weather than most creatures do.
The wings of blue dragons are more flexible than those of other chromatics. Blue dragons use winds to steer and to boost their speed, like sailors tacking a ship.
A blue dragon might smell of ozone, though the presence of a storm or even a mild wind can mask this scent.
Red Dragon
When legends, fairy tales, and fables speak of dragons without specifying a color—when they tell of kingdoms laid waste, virtuous maidens sacrificed, and valiant heroes sent home as charred corpses— odds are that they speak of the mighty red dragons. Also called flame dragons, fire wyrms, and mountain dragons, these horrific beasts epitomize the iconic dragon traits. All dragons are predators, but reds are the most voracious, consuming far more than they require. All dragons are greedy, but reds are avaricious beyond any point of reason, for they fully believe that all wealth belongs to those strong enough to take it (and no amount of wealth is ever enough). All dragons are prideful, but reds are arrogant in the extreme. They see themselves as the pinnacle of draconic perfection.
Red dragons never forgive even the smallest slights. They kill over territorial intrusion, over the tiniest theft from their hoard, over an insult, or because they want to. These great beasts take satisfaction wherever and however they can get it. A red dragon unable to slay a person who offends it will go on a rampage, wreaking havoc and destruction upon any nearby communities. Only enormous monetary tributes can sate the legendary rage of a red dragon; only blood can cool and drown that rage.
Red dragons are not mindlessly violent, however. Accomplished strategists, they spend their time developing vast arrays of tactics for use in every conceivable combat scenario. They recognize the hazards in attacking more potent foes—rare though such foes might be. They back down from fights they do not believe they can win, though doing so wounds their pride to the bone.
A humanoid community that borders on a red dragon’s territory can sometimes forestall the beast’s wrath by offering frequent tribute in the form of treasure and tasty young adults. Some red dragons enjoy the power in ruling communities of lesser creatures, but unlike green dragons, who do so by subtlety and intrigue, reds demand obedience and slaughter all who fail to comply. Red dragons take interest in news of the world beyond their territories, in part so they know how their status compares to that of other reds. They might threaten homes and families in order to force humanoids to travel into the wild and obtain news. Most such unwilling messengers do not survive to return, but red dragons have no qualms about that turn of events. Humanoids are a renewable resource. Like most dragons, reds can survive on almost anything but prefer meat. More than any other variety of dragon, though, red dragons hate to eat anything else. Some starve themselves nearly to death rather than consume plants or inorganic matter. They eat any animals: humanoids, wild beasts, and even other dragons—the younger, the better. Their preference for tender meats gave rise to legends of dragons kidnapping young people.
Reds fight equally well on land or in the air. They relish melee combat as an opportunity to showcase their superior strength. A red dragon never hesitates to use its breath weapon, though, when the need presents itself. It would rather reduce any possible treasure or magic items to ash than allow the bearers of those items to best it in combat: The dragon’s pride overpowers its avarice.
Although red dragons might refrain from attacking enemies that seem too strong, reds never retreat from combat once any combatant sheds blood. Due to their hubris, red dragons fight to the death more than any other kind of dragon, even when they have the option to escape.
Lairs and Terrain
Although a red dragon’s first terrain choice is somewhere elevated and especially hot, such as a volcano or a sulfurous geyser, a red does not require such a location. It might take residence in a normal mountain peak, in rocky badlands, or on a desert mesa: any location where it can perch high and survey its domain for miles around. Red dragons loathe the cold, but cold does not harm them any more than it does other creatures. A few reds even make their homes among snow-capped peaks, because altitude matters to them more than temperature. A red that can boast a lair combining altitude and temperature, such as one atop a volcanic peak, considers itself fortunate indeed.
Red dragons prefer large caves or complexes of caves, with access both to high vantage points and to the depths of the earth. Though they seek high ground for surveying their territory, they feel safer sleeping and storing their treasure beneath layers of rock. Because such complexes rarely occur naturally, red dragons frequently take over caverns dug by other races, or they enslave people to construct or modify their lairs. Red dragons looking for homes scour out and claim many an underground or partially underground community, such as dwarven cities and drow access tunnels. Because of this behavior, and despite their preference for high perches, red dragons occasionally come into conflict with purple dragons.
Favored Treasure
Red dragons’ favorite treasure is everything in their hoards, everything of value in other dragons’ hoards, and everything of value possessed by anyone else. So unabashedly and indiscriminately greedy are reds that no common preferences, habits, or patterns in treasure acquisition emerge. Although individuals might have specific preferences, the average red dragon does not care what form its treasure takes.
Life Cycle
A red dragon lays its eggs roughly five and a half months into the incubation time of twenty-two months. A clutch numbers two to four eggs, and all prove viable under optimal conditions. A red dragon is a wyrmling until the age of eight or so, and young until about 200. It attains elder status at around 950 and becomes an ancient around 1,900. The oldest known red dragon reached approximately 2,500 years.
When it occurs, a red dragon’s environmental diffusion takes one of two forms, depending on its surroundings. In a mountainous or rocky area, the spot where the dragon dies breaks open, revealing one or more large, sulfurous geysers or small volcanic vents that emit foul-smelling and acrid smoke even when not erupting. In less stony and more flammable areas, a permanent wildfire results, never spreading beyond the boundaries of the diffusion and never burning out, regardless of fuel or weather.
Physical Characteristics
Red dragons are the largest of chromatic dragons. Their wings are vast in proportion to their bodies, making red dragons easily identifiable even from a great distance. Unlike the scales of other chromatic dragons, red dragons’ scales rarely blend in with their backgrounds—with the possible exception of backgrounds of raging fire. Conspicuousness suits these beasts just fine. They have no interest in hiding from lesser creatures.
Two of the frills on the sides of a red dragon’s head aid in its hearing ability. Though not external ears— red dragons, like all chromatic dragons, have internal ears only—these frills help the dragon pick up sounds and determine directionality.
Red dragons smell of smoke and sulfur. The air around them sometimes shimmers, as though viewed through a heat mirage.